Gwendoline (1984)

Based on a strong recommendation from someone whose tastes I resoect, I just had to see Gwendoline. It was actually quite a change of pace for director Just Jaeckin. While I have a soft spot for Emmanuelle it does take itself a tad seriously. That accusation certainly can’t be leveled at Gwendoline. This movie is just pure fun.

Gwendoline makes a spectacular entrance to the film, having being shipped somewhere to the Mysterious Orient in a packing case. She is trying to find her father, who vanished while hunting for a particularly rare and exotic butterfly. Gwendoline finds herself in the hands in the hands of some very shady characters, with her virtue in very real and imminent danger. Fortunately she and her faithful companion Beth are rescued by Willard.

Willard turns out to be an adventurer, although in fact he’s really just as much of a crook as the guys he rescued Gwendoline and Beth from. But Gwendoline manages to convince him to help her in her quest to find her father and the elusive butterfly. The methods she uses to secure his assistance are as underhanded as his own methods of doing business, and for that reason they prove quite successful. Soon this unlikely trio are trekking through jungles and trackless deserts, on the trail of exotic lepidoptera. They find more than they bargained for, including a lost city of amazons.

Being a Just Jaeckin movie you’d expect it to look gorgeous, and you’d be right. You’d also expect lots of sex and nudity, but in that respect you’d be quite wrong. The nudity is very tame indeed. And the only sex scene is between two people who don’t even touch (and it’s actually a very clever and effectively erotic scene).

Tawny Kitaen makes a delightful heroine. She’s not exactly a great actress, but it’s not like she’s playing Lady Macbeth. For the type of film this is she does a splendid job, combining wide-eyed innocence with feistiness and being generally rather enchanting. Brent Huff is equally good as the male lead, providing the right mix of cynicism and sexiness.

Jaeckin handles the action sequences surprisingly well, and the pacing is perfect. There are great locations (it was shot in the Philippines and Morocco with the studio scenes done in Paris), suitably bizarre S&M-flavoured costumes, great sets and just the right tone of tongue-in-cheek humour laced with adventure and romance.

There’s a commentary track by the director on the director’s cut DVD, with Jaeckin immediately establishing himself as charming and amusing and without any of the arrogance that is unfortunately so common among modern directors. He clearly had enormous fun making this film and he conveys that enthusiasm in his commentary. A wonderfully enjoyable romp of a movie. Highly recommended.

Teenage Gang Debs (1966)

Teenage Gang Debs is a story of overwhelming ambition and of revenge of almost Shakespearian intensity. It’s the tale of a ruthless woman who uses sex and manipulation to satisfy her insatiable thirst for power, and it’s a tale of a terrible and horrifying vengeance exacted by women upon their tormentor. And it’s also a 1960s juvenile delinquent movie, with a frenetic soundtrack and go-go dancing. So it’s clearly a movie not to be missed.

The Rebels are a teenage gang in New York. The movie was released in 1966 but (like a lot of juvenile delinquent movies) it actually has the look of a slightly earlier period, more early 60s than mid-60s. Everything changes for the Rebels the day that a new girl, Terry, arrives on their turf. Terry decides that there’s only one place to start, and that’s at the top. The easiest way to get to the top is by being the girlfriend of the gang president. He already has a girl, but Terry disposes of her very quickly.

The only problem now is that gang leader Johnny has one little quirk. He likes to carve his initials into the breasts of his women, as a token of his ownership. Terry isn’t very impressed with this idea. So clearly Johnny has to go, and that’s arranged by manipulating his second-in-command Nino into challenging him for the position. The manipulation is simplicity itself. She seduces Nino and makes sure Johnny discovers them in the gang president’s bedroom, giving Nino no choice but to fight Johnny. The fact that Nino already has a girlfriend is a very minor complication, and she is rapidly discarded. To make sure she gets the message she’s no longer wanted Terry persuades Nino to sanction a fitting punishment Nino’s old girlfriend - she has her raped by the entire male membership of the gang.

The next step in the achievement of Terry’s boundless ambitions is to establish the Rebels as the premier teen gang, which requires the other gangs to be brutally dealt with. A major rumble with a rival gang leaves five teenagers dead. Terry’s methods naturally make her plenty of enemies and the stage is set for a final violent showdown.

This isn’t a campy 50s juvenile delinquent flick. There are numerous murders and vicious bashings as well as the previously mentioned gang rape. The stark black-and-white cinematography accentuates the mood of casual violence. There aren’t many laughs, but the movie undeniably has a certain power. The acting is fairly amateurish but has an intensity that you don’t often get in teen B movies.

It’s released by Something Weird, paired with another movie (Teenage Strangler) which I haven’t watched yet. Something Weird really do come up with some strange and fascinating forgotten movies. Teenage Gang Debs is unquestionably a must for any fan of juvenile delinquent films. It’s interesting to compare it to Jack Hill’s Switchblade Sisters - very different movies made in very different styles, but both having a Shakespearian quality to them.

Confessions of a Psycho Cat (1968)

Confessions of a Psycho Cat is a bizarre but fascinating 1968 variation on The Most Dangerous Game. Like so many exploitation movies of this period it existed in several versions. The version released by Something Weird Video had extra sexploitation scenes added, and although those scenes make no sense their very disconnectedness adds to the surreal quality of the film.

The psycho cat of the title is Virginia, played with extraordinary enthusiasm and wide-eyed craziness by Eileen Lord. Her brother is a big-game hunter, and while he’s on safari in Africa Virginia decides to go on a safari of her own in New York City. First she needs some game to hunt. She finds three men who have all committed a murder but been acquitted, and offers each of them $100,000 if they can survive in Manhattan for 24 hours while she stalks them. Her three victims are an ageing actor who killed a jealous husband who caught him with his wife, a wrestler who killed a man in the ring by stomping on his face, and a junkie drug-dealer who gave his girlfriend a fatal dose of heroin.

The sequences in which she hunts them down have a wonderfully off-the-wall surreal quality to them, especially with Virginia dressed as a matador in her final showdown with the wrestler. The wrestler fights like a wounded bull, which is appropriate enough since he’s played by legendary boxer Jake LaMotta, the Raging Bull himself. The drug-dealer is pursued through Central Park by Virginia, her weapon this time being a cross-bow.

While Virginia hunts her human prey she is also being hunted, by her psychiatrist. He ha been increasingly disturbed by her erratic behaviour. Can the good doctor find her in time? And what has caused her mania for hunting, and what is driving her to murder?

Eileen Lord’s performance is definitely the highlight. She’s amazing, truly and utterly amazing. This is scenery-chewing on a level rarely achieved before or since, and it’s superbly entertaining. The movie itself is weird but compelling and a great deal of fun. The Something Weird DVD release looks extremely good and there are lots of extras, including an odd little educational film on mental health from the 50s that is guaranteed to reduce any prospective parent to a guilt-ridden shambles, and there’s a second feature film as well (which I have yet to see).

If you have a taste for the strange then Confessions of a Psycho Cat is highly recommended.

Thirst (1979)

Thirst is a rather interesting 1970s Australian horror film. It may well be the only Australian vampire movie. And it’s actually quite an interesting vampire movie.

The Brotherhood is a centuries-old world-wide organisation of vampires. It’s an ancient society, but these vampires believe in moving with the times. They’ve embraced modern management techniques and now run a network of high-tech factory farms raising blood cows. Blood cows being of course humans raised as vampire food. This means the modern vampire can be guaranteed of blood free from impurities and disease, neatly packaged in cartons that look just like milk cartons. They combine this modern approach with a respect for their own history, so when they discover that a woman named Kate Davis living in Melbourne is a descendant of Countess Elizabeth Bathory they’re keen to recruit her into their ranks. In fact they’re very keen indeed. She is, after all, vampire aristocracy. Trouble is Kate doesn’t know about her blood-drinking heritage, and when she finds out she’s not exactly over the moon about it. She’s a successful businesswoman, she’s in a relationship, and she’s not enthusiastic about a lifestyle change that includes the drinking of human blood. That’s where Dr Fraser and his team come in. They’re a kind of vampire therapy team, experts in reprogramming reluctant vampires.

At the time this movie was made the Australian film industry was stuck in a particularly tedious rut, churning out turgid historical dramas that took themselves much too seriously. In this environment producer Antony I. Ginnane was a bit of a maverick. He modelled himself on Roger Corman, and started turning out contemporary genre movies – thrillers, sexploitation movies, and horror movies – that were aimed very much at international markets. In fact his movies at this time were commercial flops in Australia but enjoyed considerable success elsewhere. He was a firm believer in including at least one reasonably well-known overseas actor in each movie to give it added appeal internationally. The imported star in Thirst is David Hemmings, and in this case it works well. He’s perfectly cast as the charming and rather ambiguous Dr Fraser. The real star of the movie though is Australian actress Chantal Contouri, who plays Kate. She gives a fine performance.

Horror in movies can be achieved in various ways, most crudely by means of gore and violence, and in a more sophisticated manner by use of atmosphere. Thirst on the other hand relies to a large extent on the sheer creepiness of the idea of factory farms for humans, and it works pretty well. That’s not to say the film lacks atmosphere. Much of it was shot at Montsalvat, a very gothic-looking artists’ retreat in Victoria, and the combination of this rather gothic setting with the high-tech factory farming approach and the sophisticated (by 1979 standards) scientific equipment employed by the Brotherhood is interesting and effective. There are some good set-pieces (especially the one involving the helicopter and the power lines) and some moments of rather black humour, as in the scene with the vampire tourists on a guided tour of the farm. Thirst offers enough original ideas and entertainment value to be very much worth checking out. And it’s available on DVD in all regions. I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Russ Meyer’s Up! (1976)

If you’re familiar with Russ Meyer’s movies then you’ll pretty much know what to expect from Up!, and if you like his movies there’s real no reason not to like this one. It’s very much in the style of his previous movie, Supervixens, and like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls it was scripted by Roger Ebert (yes, that Roger Ebert). It has a totally insane plot, involving Nazis and a murder mystery. It has plenty of cartoon-style violence, lots of rednecks, and a host of women with extraordinarily large breasts.

It has even more sex and nudity than his earlier films, but like the violence the sex is done in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. It’s easy to make sex look ridiculous, but very few people have had Meyer’s talent for making sex funny. I can’t imagine anyone actually finding this movie titillating – it’s too silly and too funny. The plot involves an old guy with a German accent who looks like an elderly version of a certain well-known 20th century dictator, an old guy who is murdered by the time-honoured method of dropping a hungry piranha into his bathtub. We are then introduced to the spectacularly well-endowed Margo Winchester (Raven de la Croix), who quickly demonstrates that she’s not a woman to be trifled with when she kills a would-be rapist. She soon finds herself working in the local diner, and becoming involved with the sheriff. We also discover that any one of the townspeople may have been the murderer of the elderly German gentleman who lived in the gothic castle just outside of town, or indeed it may have been one of the young ladies with whom he shared the castle (and with whom he indulged in a variety of kinky sexual practices).

To help us keep track of the plot we have the Greek Chorus, in the form of a very naked Kitten Natividad. The resolution of the plot is as delightfully demented as you’d expect, coming from the director/screenwriter team who gave us Beyond the Valley of the Dolls . It’s all great fun. The Region 4 DVD includes interviews with Kitten Natividad and Raven de la Croix, a charming lady with a host of amusing anecdotes about the making of the movie.

If you’re new to the insanely bizarre world of Russ Meyer Up! provides a reasonable introduction, although I’d really recommend starting with some of his earlier films like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or Vixen! They truly don’t make movies like this any more, and I happen to think that’s rather sad. Modern cinema could do with a few eccentric mavericks like Russ Meyer.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

Day of the Woman, better known as I Spit on Your Grave, is not an easy movie to review. This was possibly the most notorious of all the so-called video nasties” and was the movie that cause Roger Ebert to have an attack of apoplexy. It has a reputation as such a vile and misogynistic movie that normally I would not even have bothered to see it, had it not been for Carol Clover’s eloquent and passionate feminist defence of the film in her provocative and fascinating book on the horror movie, Men, Women and Chainsaws.

The story is simple. Jennifer, a woman writer from New York, takes a house in the country, intending to work on her current book. She immediately arouses the resentment of Johnny, who works at the gas station in the town, and his friends. They resent her for being from the city, and for being rich (the two being synonymous as far as they’re concerned). Along with Matthew, a retarded man who delivers groceries, they stalk her and repeatedly rape her. Their ostensible purpose is to help Matthew to lose his virginity. Matthew’s attempt to rape her fails when he loses his nerve. After leaving her unconscious Johnny sends Mathew back to kill her, but he gain loses her nerve. She recovers, and she sets out to revenge herself on her four attackers.

While it’s nowhere near as graphic as its reputation would suggest, it’s still a very uncomfortable film to watch. It does raise some very thorny an important issues though. If you make a movie that condemns violence, but your anti-violence movie itself contains graphic violence, is the movie part of the solution or part of the problem? Does taking revenge empower a female rape victim, or dies it make her more of a victim? Does taking revenge make her as much of a monster as the rapists? I don’t know the answer to these questions, and I don’t claim to, but I do think they’re questions that have to be faced.

I can certainly understand the position of people who find this movie offensive and disgusting, but I tend to agree with Clover that it does confront us with uncomfortable issues in a very direct and very effective way, and that it’s really far less offensive than quite a number of mainstream movies that have a veneer of respectability merely from being big-budget mainstream features (Dirty Harry being a particularly repellent example). While movies such as Dirty Harry and Death Wish glorify both violence and revenge, I Spit on Your Grave takes a much more negative view of violence, and even though Jennifer’s revenge is portrayed as understandable and even justified it’s presented in a way deliberately intended to make us feel some unease about it. The movie also makes it clear that the men involved derive no joy from their crime. The rapes are clearly not about pleasure or lust, they’re simply about male competition, about establishing and maintaining male hierarchies and dealing with male anxieties. As Clover says, “the rapes are presented as almost sexless acts of cruelty that the men seem to commit more for each other’s edification than for their own physical pleasure.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more sweeping condemnation of male group behaviour than the one offered by this movie. Clover also points out that the violence, as in so many American horror movies, is motivated as much by class and regional (city vs country) tensions as it is by tensions between the sexes. I can’t say I’m entirely convinced by Carol Clover’s arguments in favour of this movie (and she herself admits it’s a difficult movie to defend) but I think that its more vehement critics have perhaps missed the point entirely.

Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Tales from the Crypt was one of the series of very successful horror anthology films made by Amicus Studios in Britain the late 60s and early 70s. This one follows the same basic formula as the others. For my money the best of all the Amicus movies is Asylum, which has a genuinely clever framing story that is just as interesting as the individual segments.

Tales from the Crypt on the other hand boasts a particularly feeble framing story. With one of the best horror directors in Britain at the helm, and some of the country’s finest and most outrageous hams in the cast, this should have been a lot of fun. Somehow it doesn’t quite make it. The individual stories themselves are (with one exception) really too short, and they just don’t go anywhere. Milton Subotsky’s script is rather predictable, and lacks any real imagination.

The first story, with Joan Collins and a murderous Santa Claus, has promise but it’s much too short. The next three stories are all fairly pointless, with Reflection of Death being a complete waste of time. Things finally start looking up with the final instalment, Blind Alleys. A cruel army officer takes over a home for the blind, and ruthlessly exploits the inmates, who are driven to a horrific act of revenge. This story gives Freddie Francis the chance to show what he can do in the way of visual horror, and he produces a superb set-piece involving razor blades and a ravenous dog. It’s genuinely chilling, and it benefits from Patrick Magee doing some of the most gloriously over-the-top scenery-chewing you’ll ever see in a horror movie, or any other kind of movie for that matter. This story is almost good enough to redeem the whole movie.

Overall, Tales from the Crypt is reasonably entertaining if a little flat. Worth a rental, not perhaps not worth buying.

On a slightly different note, I’ve now seen Joan Collins in a couple of 1970s horror movies, and I have a shocking confession to make. I rather like her. She’s a mediocre actress, but she has undeniable presence and she’s fun and she has an instinctive understanding of camp, and it’s not as if she ever pretended to be a great actress.